Daddy-Long-Legs
yellow color) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my
window seat using the last light to write to you.
Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I’m not used to receiving
Christmas presents. You have already given me such lots of
things--everything I have, you know--that I don’t quite feel that I
deserve extras. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know
what I bought with my money?
I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me
to recitations on time.
II. Matthew Arnold’s poems.
III. A hot water bottle.
IV. A steamer rug. (My tower is cold.)
V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I’m going to
commence being an author pretty soon.)
VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author’s vocabulary.)
VII. (I don’t much like to confess this last item, but I will.)
A pair of silk stockings.
And now, Daddy, never say I don’t tell all!
It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the
silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry,
and she sits cross legged on the couch and wears silk stockings
every night. But just wait--as soon as she gets back from vacation I
shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see,
Daddy, the miserable creature that I am--but at least I’m honest;
and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn’t perfect,
didn’t you?
To recapitulate (that’s the way the English instructor begins every
other sentence), I am _very_ much obliged for my seven presents.
I’m pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family in
California. The watch is from father, the rug from mother, the hot
water bottle from grandmother--who is always worrying for fear I
shall catch cold in this climate--and the yellow paper from my
little brother Harry. My sister Isobel gave me the silk stockings,
and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little Harry
is named for him) gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send
chocolates, but I insisted on synonyms.
You don’t object do you, to playing the part of a composite family?
And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only
interested in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the
delicate shade of meaning in “as such.” It is the latest addition to
my vocabulary.
The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny as
Jerusha, isn’t it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride;
I shall never like any one so much as Sallie--except you. I must
always like you the best of all, because you’re my whole family
rolled into one. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked ’cross
country every pleasant day and explored the whole neighborhood,
dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying
shinny sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town--four
miles--and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for
dinner. Broiled lobster (35 cents) and for dessert, buckwheat cakes
and maple syrup (15 cents). Nourishing and cheap.
It was such a lark! Especially for me, because it was so awfully
different from the asylum--I feel like an escaped convict every time
I leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell the others
what an experience I was having. The cat was almost out of the bag
when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back. It’s awfully hard
for me not to tell everything I know. I’m a very confiding soul by
nature; if I didn’t have you to tell things to, I’d burst.
We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the house
matron of Fergussen to the left-behinds in the other halls. There
were twenty-two of us altogether, Freshmen and Sophomores and
Juniors and Seniors all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is
huge, with copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone
wall--the littlest casserole among them about the size of a wash
boiler. Four hundred girls live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white
cap and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons--I
can’t imagine where he got so many--and we all turned ourselves into
cooks.
It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was
finally finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the door-knobs
all thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession and still in our
caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan, we
marched through the empty corridors to the officers’ parlor where
half-a-dozen professors and instructors were passing a tranquil
evening. We serenaded them with college songs and offered
refreshments. They accepted politely but dubiously. We left them
sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless.
So you see, Daddy, my education progresses!
Don’t you really think that I ought to be an artist instead of an
author?
Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the
girls again. My tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine people
occupy a house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle
around a bit.
Eleven pages--poor Daddy, you must be tired! I meant this to be just
a short little thank-you note--but when I get started I seem to have
a ready pen.
Good-by, and thank you for thinking of me--I should be perfectly
happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon.
Examinations come in February.
Yours with love,
JUDY.
P. S. Maybe it isn’t proper to send love? If it isn’t, please
excuse. But I must love somebody and there’s only you and Mrs.
Lippett to choose between, so you see--you’ll _have_ to put up with
it, Daddy dear, because I can’t love her.
On the Eve.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
You should see the way this college is studying! We’ve forgotten we
ever had a vacation. Fifty-seven irregular verbs have I introduced
to my brain in the past four days--I’m only hoping they’ll stay
till after examinations.
Some of the girls sell their text-books when they’re through with
them, but I intend to keep mine. Then after I’ve graduated I shall
have my whole education in a row in the bookcase, and when I need to
use any detail, I can turn to it without the slightest hesitation.
So much easier and more accurate than trying to keep it in your
head.
Julia Pendleton dropped in this evening to pay a social call, and
stayed a solid hour. She got started on the subject of family, and I
_couldn’t_ switch her off. She wanted to know what my mother’s
maiden name was--did you ever hear such an impertinent question to
ask of a person from a foundling asylum? I didn’t have the courage
to say I didn’t know, so I just miserably plumped on the first name
I could think of, and that was Montgomery. Then she wanted to know
whether I belonged to the Massachusetts Montgomerys or the Virginia
Montgomerys.
Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and
were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father’s side
they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches of her
family tree there’s a superior breed of monkeys, with very fine
silky hair and extra long tails.
I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter to-night,
but I’m too sleepy--and scared. The Freshman’s lot is not a happy
one.
Yours, about to be examined,
JUDY ABBOTT.
Sunday.
_Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I have some awful, awful, awful news to tell you, but I won’t begin
with it; I’ll try to get you in a good humor first.
Jerusha Abbott has commenced to be an author. A poem entitled, “From
my Tower,” appears in the February _Monthly_--on the first page,
which is a very great honor for a Freshman. My English instructor
stopped me on the way out from chapel last night, and said it was a
charming piece of work except for the sixth line, which had too many
feet. I will send you a copy in case you care to read it.
Let me see if I can’t think of something else pleasant--Oh, yes!
I’m learning to skate, and can glide about quite respectably all by
myself. Also I’ve learned how to slide down a rope from the roof of
the gymnasium, and I can vault a bar three feet and six inches
high--I hope shortly to pull up to four feet.
We had a very inspiring sermon this morning preached by the Bishop
of Alabama. His text was: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” It was
about the necessity of overlooking mistakes in others, and not
discouraging people by harsh judgments. I wish you might have heard
it.
This is the sunniest, most blinding winter afternoon, with icicles
dripping from the fir trees and all the world bending under a weight
of snow--except me, and I’m bending under a weight of sorrow.
Now for the news--courage, Judy!--you must tell.
Are you _surely_ in a good humor? I flunked mathematics and Latin
prose. I am tutoring in them, and will take another examination next
month. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but otherwise I don’t
care a bit because I’ve learned such a lot of things not mentioned
in the catalogue. I’ve read seventeen novels and _bushels_ of
poetry--really necessary novels like “Vanity Fair” and “Richard
Feverel” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Also Emerson’s “Essays” and
Lockhart’s “Life of Scott” and the first volume of Gibbon’s “Roman
Empire” and half of Benvenuto Cellini’s “Life”--wasn’t he
entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before
breakfast.
So you see, Daddy, I’m much more intelligent than if I’d just
stuck to Latin. Will you forgive me this once if I promise never to
flunk again?
Yours in sackcloth,
JUDY.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I’m sort
of lonely to-night. It’s awfully stormy; the snow is beating
against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank
black coffee and I can’t go to sleep.
I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia and
Leonora Fenton--and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge
and coffee. Julia said she’d had a good time, but Sallie stayed to
help wash the dishes.
I might, very usefully, put some time on Latin to-night--but,
there’s no doubt about it, I’m a very languid Latin scholar.
We’ve finished Livy and De Senectute and are now engaged with De
Amicitia (pronounced Damn Icitia).
Should you mind, just for a little while, pretending you are my
grandmother? Sallie has one and Julia and Leonora each two, and they
were all comparing them to-night. I can’t think of anything I’d
rather have; it’s such a respectable relationship. So, if you
really don’t object--When I went into town yesterday, I saw the
sweetest cap of Cluny lace trimmed with lavender ribbon. I am going
to make you a present of it on your eighty-third birthday.
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
That’s the clock in the chapel tower striking twelve. I believe I
am sleepy after all.
Good night, Granny.
I love you dearly.
JUDY.
The Ides of March.
_Dear D. L. L._,
I am studying Latin prose composition. I have been studying it.
I shall be studying it. I shall be about to have been studying it.
My reëxamination comes the 7th hour next Tuesday, and I am going to
pass or BUST. So you may expect to hear from me next, whole and
happy and free from conditions, or in fragments.
I will write a respectable letter when it’s over. To-night I have a
pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute.
Yours--in evident haste,
J. A.
March 26th.
_Mr. D. L. L. Smith._
SIR: You never answer any questions; you never show the slightest
interest in anything I do. You are probably the horridest one of all